


Too Slow

by embulance



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergent After Season Two, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hunk (Voltron)-centric, Hurt/Comfort, Matt Holt-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 15:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12962901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embulance/pseuds/embulance
Summary: He knows he’s about to lose another person if he’s not fast enough. ( but you’re never fast enough, are you? )





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this fic was inspired by some discussions ( and those stupid roleplay memes ) I had on my roleplay blog with the Pidge to my Hunk. I actually wrote this first part ages ago. I'm posting it on here now because I'm starting work on a second ( and probably final ) chapter. It's pretty much pure angst, very heavy and hard to read. Please read with caution. And if you catch any warnings I should tag besides the character death, please please please let me know, because I feel like there should be more warnings that "It's sad." 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and please enjoy. ( Or don't, lord knows I cry every time I go back to this. )

He’d always known that there was a chance that something could happen to one of them. They’d already almost lost Lance once. He’d known that being a paladin was dangerous, but somehow, he never thought they would actually lose anyone. He’d always told himself that they’d get through another day, somehow, because anything else wasn’t an option.

But then Shiro was gone.

And that had been hard enough, but they just had to carry on without him, right? Eventually they’d find him – after all, it wasn’t like he was dead, right? There was no body. Shiro was fine. He was fine – he had to be. Hunk refused to believe otherwise.

So they had. They had kept going without Shiro.

What else could they do?

And Hunk had told himself that it would all be okay. Sure, their team was a member short, but they were strong and smart, and they could get by until they found Shiro. It’d be okay. It had to be okay.

But it wasn’t okay.

Everything was so far from okay.

Comms were down, and they were separated from their lions. They were alone, and frankly, the situation seemed completely hopeless. It was just supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission, but they were ambushed, and now she was surrounded.

She was surrounded, and he had to get to her. He just had to get to her. "Pidge, I’m coming," he shouts, pushing himself to move as fast as he can. ( No, no, no – please, not Pidge; don’t hurt Pidge!! ) His weapon is not the best to fire while on the move but desperation can push a man to do things he’s normally not capable of. He tears through the ranks of the Galra viciously, terror clear in his every movement, eyes wild. ( Not her, not her, not her – please, don’t take anyone else from them!! ) He remembers seeing Lance motionless after Sendak’s attack. He remembers watching as Shay was dragged away and he left her behind. He remembers seeing so much hurt and pain caused by Zarkon’s reign. He remembers finding the black lion empty, Shiro gone.

He knows he’s about to lose another person if he’s not fast enough. ( but you’re never fast enough, are you? )

A shout of pain escapes Pidge and Hunk calls to her. "Hold on just a bit longer, Pidge – I’m coming; I’m coming!!"

He’s not fast enough.

He can barely see her as she takes a shot to the back and falls to the ground. "Pidge!!" Hunk screams – she doesn’t get back up. "Pidge, no!!"

It’s all a blur as he tears through the remaining Galra ranks, anger pounding in his veins. Pidge is fine, he tells himself. She has to be. _She has to be_. ( You can’t lose another person, but even more so – you can’t lose Pidge. Not her. )

At the end of it all, he falls on his knees next to Pidge, gently lifting her into his arms. They’re still surrounded by the fallen Galra sentries, but Hunk hardly seems to notice them. "Pidge, I’m here. I’m gonna you back to the lions. It’s gonna be okay."

She stirs slightly with the movement and gives him the slightest of smiles. Hunk can see it in her eyes – she doesn’t think she’s gonna make it. Hunk refuses to accept this. She’s going to be fine. She’s going to be fine. _She has to be_.

As he carries her, he whispers soft words of encouragement, but as the time passes what little response Pidge gave grew more and more sluggish and soon she became unresponsive altogether. He presses lips to her forehead and whispers, "Sleep well, Pidge; we’ll get back soon."

He doesn’t notice the tears streaming freely down his face.

Now even he can’t deny she’s not there. He hopes that the pods can do something for her, but he’s scared. He’s terrified. He knows every moment she is here in his arms she’s slipping away. She’s slipping away, and he can’t do anything but run to ships that might not even be there after this ambush. He prays the wormhole is still open – if it’s not, not only will Pidge not stand a chance, but neither will he. He won’t be able to fix the comms before reinforcements show up, and he can’t make it back to the castle fast enough to save Pidge or to even outrun the Galra.

He’s so quickly losing hope.

* * *

 

Somehow, he makes it back to the lions. Somehow, despite all their abysmal luck so far that day, the wormhole is open. He cradles Pidge in his lap as he manages to maneuver the yellow lion through the wormhole, and somehow gets them back to the castle in one piece, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough.

She’s already gone.

He was too late.

He failed her. He tried so hard to save her, and he wasn’t fast enough. ( It’s all your fault, your fault – you failed her; you were too slow, if you’d just been the tiniest bit faster she’d be here – _it's all your fault she's gone!_ ) A sob escapes him as he brushes gentle fingers over her face. He still remembers the way she smiled at him, even as she lay dying in his arms. He failed her, and still she had smiled for him.

"I’m sorry," he whispers. "I’m so sorry."

But apologies won’t bring her back.

* * *

 

Allura performs some sort of Altean ritual for Pidge. Hunk can’t bear to watch. It makes it all the more real; don’t get it wrong, he knows she’s gone – he’s not in denial, but part of him wants to pretend that it isn’t happening. It doesn’t feel real – he goes to eat, and he prepares a plate for her, like he always does, before he remembers that she’s gone. She’s never going to eat another one of his meals, because he’d let her die. It’s hard to eat after that. How can he eat when he’s the reason she’ll never eat again?

He can’t sleep anymore either. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees her die all over again. He can’t bear to see her like that. He wants to remember her as she was; he wants to remember all the times they spent together working on projects and the late night conversations. He wants to remember the good times, but they hurt too. He’s not sure what hurts more, reliving her death over and over, or remembering the good times and knowing that she’ll never experience those good times again.

( Sometimes you wish it had been you instead. )

He takes up training during the nights where he can’t sleep – so almost every night, more or less. If anyone notices, they don’t say anything. Hunk thinks they are all too wrapped up in their own grief to notice his – he doesn’t blame them. He’s too wrapped up in his own grief to deal with theirs, too.

So he trains and he trains and he trains until he can’t anymore, and then when he’s exhausted and at his limit, he trains more.

He’s never going to fail anyone else like he failed Pidge. He’d sooner die.

During the day, he takes up Pidge’s old projects, because someone has to, and really, he’s the only one that could hope to keep up with them. In a way, it makes him feel closer to her, but it also serves as a constant reminder that she’s gone, and she’s not coming back. He grows to hate the things he once loved. Tinkering with electronics and ship parts used to be fun. Now it’s just a painful reminder.

She’s gone, and somehow, he’s still here.

* * *

 

He takes up the search for Sam and Matt Holt too, partially because Pidge would want them to be out of the clutches of the Galra, but also because they deserve to know what happened to her. ( They deserve to know that you failed her. ) This is the only thing Hunk can do for Pidge now. He can’t go back and save her, but he can do this. In the process, he frees a fairly high number of prisoners – sometimes going on risky rescue missions without telling anyone. He’s going to save Pidge’s family – he failed to save her, but he’ll save them. ( In a way, it’s almost like you’re trying to repent for your sins, but will saving these two take away the guilt you feel for her death? )

* * *

 

The team dynamics fall apart without Pidge, as well. They can’t afford to have both Allura and Coran not in the castle of lions – someone has to pilot the ship. They can’t form Voltron, but Hunk doesn’t want to form Voltron anymore – even if they had another paladin, Hunk’s no longer connected with the team in his grief; they’d never be able to as long as Hunk continued to be stubborn. It felt wrong without Shiro, but it’s even worse not having Pidge. Hunk probably doesn’t make things better. He’s tired and he’s miserable and the more time passes, the angrier he gets.

( You’re falling apart, but there’s no time to address it. You’re in the middle of a war. You can’t afford to be falling apart, so you force it all down. There’s no other choice. )

They need to focus their attention on finding Shiro again, he insists, and Keith agrees, probably because that’s what he wanted all along, but the others want to be more pragmatic – we need to find another paladin, they say.

( You don’t want another paladin, you think. Pidge isn’t replaceable. She’s just not. How could anyone ever fill her shoes? )

In the end, his complaints don’t matter. No matter who they bring to the green lion, the lion never responds. Hunk wonders if it died that day with Pidge.

* * *

 

Hunk works himself into the ground searching for the Holts and training. Despite the progress he makes, he feels like he’s getting nowhere. He feels like it’s all for nothing. Everything feels pointless. Nothing will bring her back. Sometimes, he just wants to give up on everything – but he feels like he can’t. He owes it to Pidge to see this all through to the end. He owes it to her to see Zarkon fall and the universe freed. He owes it to her to find the family she can no longer see.

( But if you’re a little more reckless in battle, taking more shots than is really smart… Well, no one says anything – not that it would stop you. )

And then one day, all his searching finally produces fruitful results. Hunk leaves in the middle of the night in his lion. He doesn’t tell anyone what he’s doing or where he’s going. He’s not going to fail. Not this time. No one needs to know until he comes back.

The rebels are surprisingly well organized. He meets with a small group of them on a moon, and eventually they come to an agreement that results in the rebels agreeing to join the Voltron alliance. Hunk can’t bring himself to meet Matt Holt’s eyes, even though Matt doesn’t know that Pidge is dead and that it’s all Hunk’s fault.

He never manages to tell Matt what happened.

* * *

 

When the rebels arrive to the Castle of Lions for the first time, the green lion suddenly reactivates.

* * *

 

A few weeks pass during which Hunk tries his damnedest to avoid the new green paladin. Seeing Matt in that green armor brings a sick feeling to Hunk’s stomach. Matt looks so much like Pidge. Even worse, Pidge and Matt have similar mannerisms and it’s a constant reminder that she’s gone.

( You still haven’t told Matt – but you know someone had to have told him what happened. )

Eventually Matt manages to corner Hunk.

Hunk cringes, expecting Matt to have nothing good to say to him – after all, it’s Hunk’s fault Pidge is gone.

And then, Matt says the four words Hunk had been needing to hear all along.

"It’s not your fault."

Hunk thinks he can feel some little broken part of him heal with those words.


	2. Chapter 2

He never thought he’d run into another human out here, unless he was reunited with his dad or Shiro. Their race just wasn’t capable of travelling that far. And yet? There was not just one human besides himself, his father and Shiro, there were three. According to Hunk. 

Matt didn’t miss the way Hunk started to say there were four. 

He wondered who they lost -- Matt was all too familiar with that knee jerk reaction, that way you forget they’re gone for a moment and then it hits you. That sorrowful look that passed over Hunk’s face had passed over Matt’s own all too often.    
He wondered why Hunk said he’d been looking everywhere for him, when Hunk had no reason to. 

The ride to the Castle of Lions was awkward at best. Matt kept trying to pick details out from Hunk, but it was like pulling teeth. Hunk, for a guy who claimed to have been looking everywhere for him, did not seem to want to talk to Matt at all -- in fact, he looked rather sick. He looked like a man who’d not slept in days; he looked fragile for such a big guy, like the right words or the right wind would blow him over.

Matt felt like he was missing some important details, and he almost wasn’t sure he wanted to know what he didn’t know. ( Something in you knows this is something you don’t want to know. )

* * *

 

The activation of the green lion has some sort of significance that has Hunk outright fleeing from Matt, and Keith isn’t far behind. Allura only seems to want to talk to him about his duties as a paladin, something Matt doesn’t quite want to hear in this moment -- his curiosity about what’s got everyone looking like death warmed over is going to be the death of him, he’s sure. Coran reminds Matt a bit of his dad, and that just makes Matt sad.

“What was with Hunk? He seemed a bit of a mess.” Matt decides to approach Lance; he seems the obvious choice. And Lance just gives off a vibe of being easy to talk to -- though he seems tired too. 

Matt is slightly scared to find out what’s plaguing them so that they all look like they’ve been chewed up and spat out. 

“Sit down, Matt.” And something in Lance’s voice compels Matt to obey. Matt sinks into the nearest seat, and Lance speaks, voice cracking with grief in places. “Pidge was killed a few months ago by the Galra.”

Matt doesn’t question how she got there or what happened. He just -- he just falls apart. “No.  _ No _ , that can’t be true -- this is just a sick joke; it has to be.”

“I wish,” and Lance sounds so bitter Matt can’t help but believe it. 

Matt breaks. ( How can you do anything else when she’s gone, gone,  _ gone _ ? )

He screams and he cries. It’s not fair. Pidge -- Katie -- his beloved sister. Gone.  _ Gone _ . He’s never going to see her again. Nothing will ever make that okay. He barely realizes that he’s slid out of his seat until he’s slammed his fist against the floor in his distress, dull pain registering before he does it again just because it feels more real than the fact that someone just told him that his baby sister is dead. ( You would suffer through far more pain than this if it would bring her back, but it won’t -- it won’t; nothing will ever fix this. )

Tears splatter the floor before him, ignored because it doesn’t matter -- how can it matter? 

It just can’t be true. ( If it’s true, what are you going to do? How are you going to live with yourself when she isn’t living at all? )

* * *

 

For awhile, he blames Hunk. It’s easy. He needs someone to blame, and Hunk is avoiding him -- it makes it easy to just throw that blame at someone who doesn’t really deserve it. It makes forming Voltron impossible -- how can they form Voltron when Matt is too busy throwing his grief into hating one of his teammates? ( Deep down, you know it’s not his fault. But it has to be someone’s fault. Anyone’s fault. )

He can hardly fly his lion at all. They don’t bond well.

Finally Allura chases him into mediating with ol’ Green, even though Matt doesn’t particularly want to -- how can he? This is the seat where Pidge sat, this is the lion she fought for the universe in, and now he’s just supposed to replace her? No. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t know why the lion chose him. 

Still, here he is, sitting where she once sat, his legs pulled up in the seat and crossed, eyes closed as he whispers. “I can’t fly you. Not when she once did; not with  _ him _ . He didn’t save her; it should have been him -- it should have been  _ me _ .”

_ It should have been anyone but her _ . 

And for the first time, he feels a bit of that connection to the lion they all have talked about.

* * *

 

It’s easier to be open with the lion after that. 

Once in awhile, she shows him things. Pidge and Hunk laughing as they work on an adjustment, hands and legs and foreheads brushing against each other as they lean in close. Hunk bringing Pidge dinner when she’s clearly been working too long; Hunk carrying her to bed when she’s fallen asleep working on the lions. 

Matt can feel how much they meant to each other just from these small glimpses, can see the way Hunk tried so hard to take care of her.

It’s hard to reconcile these images with the idea he’s built up of Hunk letting his baby sister just fall to the Galra without a care for her. He can’t deny that the two were close. He can’t deny that Hunk would have fought for his sister. And that’s a bit hard to swallow. He’s been so angry with Hunk for so long.

Did he really hate Hunk for no reason? 

Hunk’s voice fills his ears, echoing and faint, like he’s far away.  _ Hold on just a bit longer, Pidge -- I’m coming!! _ Matt has never imagined Hunk’s voice so full of desperation. This is not the voice of someone who just let her go without a care. Matt couldn’t blame Hunk. He couldn’t. No matter how much he wanted to blame someone. 

These little tidbits the lion kept sharing make it so hard to be angry -- part of him is soothed by these things. But something is still missing -- something he needs to begin to move on. He doesn’t quite know what it is he needs just yet, but some of his hurts are soothed, and that’s  _ something _ . 

( You don’t know what you need yet, but right now, in this moment, it’s okay. Sitting here with the green lion, well, for a moment, just a moment, you think things might turn out okay, and that moment is more than you’ve had in awhile. )

He closes his eyes, and whispers, “Please show me more.”

And she does.

* * *

 

It’s not hard to find Hunk. When he’s not running from Matt, he’s in the training room. Matt is beginning to wonder if this is Hunk’s way of coping with Pidge’s death. But he’s not here to worry about Hunk right now. Matt is here out of pure selfishness. There’s something that he just has to say out loud, and perhaps it will help Hunk heal just as much as it will help Matt. 

Hunk cringes, looking like he expects Matt to tear him apart -- Hunk looks guilty, and for the first time, Matt realizes that Hunk has been blaming himself too.

So, he smiles, and he says what he’s been needing to say. 

“It’s not your fault.”

And Matt thinks this is what healing feels like when he sees something a little like hope in Hunk’s eyes for the first time since meeting him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't quite decide if I should stop here or write one more chapter. I think I'll tag it as complete, and if you guys want a little more, then I may come back for one last round. Please, let me know what you guys think. If you loved it, if you hated it; I want to know. ❤


End file.
